Bristol Palin's pay seven-fold Candie's teen pregnancy prevention donations

CEO of Candie's, Neil Cole (left), with Bristol Palin and Dr. Drew Pinsky in May, 2010, at a town-hall meeting …The Candie's Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to "communication campaigns to raise awareness about, and motivate teens to prevent, teen pregnancy," is under fire for paying its ambassador Bristol Palin more than a quarter of a million dollars for telling kids not to become a teen mom like she did. That's seven-and-a-half times more than what it gave to organizations that actually prevent teen pregnancy.

In case you're wondering, yes, Candie's is that Candie's, the fashion brand famous for strappy high-heeled sandals and ads featuring barely-dressed young celebrities in sexy poses. (If the idea of Candie's promoting sexual abstinence seems a bit dissonant, you may be right. Take a look at some of the company's celebrity ad campaigns.) And a look at their 2009 tax records make it seem like their dedication to educating kids about "the devastating consequences of teenage pregnancies" may have more to do with cleaning up the company's image than anything else.

The tax-exempt, non-profit Candie's Foundation received grants and contributions of $1,695,632 in 2009, according to tax records obtained by research firm Guidestar.org and first published on the blog Palingate. That's up (way up) from $459,098 the year before. But it gave out just $35,000 in grants to organizations that work to prevent teen pregnancy-and paid spokesperson Bristol Palin a whopping $262,500 for participating in their fundraising and awareness campaigns.

That makes Palin the highest paid contractor the organization has. Coming in at number two: ABC Family, which got $165,000 (and recently cast Palin in an episode of "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." Coincidence?)

The Candie's Foundation calls itself an "operating foundation rather than a grant-making foundation," so it's fair to assume that they spend more on public service announcements than grants, right? Well, they did-but not by much. Their tax records show that the organization shelled out just $57,598-less than a quarter of what it paid Palin-for public service announcements like the cringe-inducing one featuring Palin and The Situation from "Jersey Shore" making painful double entendres while awkwardly talking about safe sex.

Foundation president Neil Cole earned a cool million, the tax records show, and CFO Warren Clamen and general counsel Andrew Tarshis each pulled down $400,000-and that doesn't include thousands of dollars in bonuses and millions more in restricted stock options.

Meanwhile, the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New york got $25,000, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy received $10,000. No, there aren't any zeros missing there.

This isn't the first time Cole has been linked to financial issues with Candie's. In 1999, while CEO of the fashion brand Candie's, Inc., Cole was accused by the SEC of using "fraudulent accounting practices designed to improve Candie's publicly reported financial condition." In 2003, without admitting or denying the SEC allegations, Cole paid a $75,000 civil fine and agreed to "cease and desist from violating… the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934," according to Forbes. Cole launched the New York-based Candie's Foundation in 2001, while the SEC's investigation was ongoing.

In 2009, at the age of 18, Palin was picked to be the "teen ambassador" for the Candie's Foundation just months after giving birth to her son, Tripp. (She and the boy's father, Levi Johnson, are no longer a couple.) According to the Candie's Foundation, where she is still on the payroll, she has appeared in two town hall meetings, numerous media interviews, three Public Service videos, and in print ads holding her son, with the quote "I never thought I'd be a statistic. More than 750,000 teenage girls will become pregnant this year." The campaign urges teens to "Pause Before You Play."

When asked to comment on the controversy, a public relations manager for The Candie's Foundation sent this statement:
We know that Ms. Palin's work has had a positive effect on creating awareness about teen pregnancy. In a recent independent national survey of 1,000 teens that compared a Bristol Palin PSA with those of another national teen pregnancy organization that use non-famous teens, more than twice as many teens (57% vs. 27%) said Bristol's PSA "got my attention", three times as many (41% vs. 11%) said it was "powerful", and more than twice as many (38% vs. 16%) said it was "memorable". Bristol Palin has been a courageous and powerful partner to the Foundation as we attempt to discourage teen pregnancy.
The foundation did not answer questions about the amount Palin was paid, the salaries of the administrators, the amount paid to ABC Family, or any income information from their tax records (which you can see here). Though the statement did say that "For ten years, The Candie's Foundation has been working to prevent teen pregnancy by producing and funding celebrity-driven print, television, radio and online public service announcements," it did not explain why so little was spent on PSAs or comment on the small grants given to Mount Sinai and to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.